Concerning the degree of productiveness, it may be remarked that that application of the factors of production is most productive, which, with the least expenditure of means, satisfies the greatest want in the economy of a people. Here, there is a continual change, corresponding precisely to the change in wants and faculties. After a bad harvest, for instance, the labor which procures grain from foreign countries or the supplies of former years, is most productive; and, after an earthquake which has destroyed a large city, the labor of the builder. Agriculture is, as a rule, the more productive [pg 185] labor of undeveloped nations, and industry of highly developed nations.[344][345]
Chapter III.
The Organization Of Labor.
Section LVI.
Development Of The Division Of Labor.
The larger a tree grows to be, the more boughs and branches does it put forth. The more perfect any species of animal is, the more does it stand in need of a special organ for each special purpose. And thus the division of labor has developed and kept pace with the development of human society. While Crusoe was obliged to provide for all his wants by his own labor, we find that in the wildest Indian family the male is employed in war, the chase, in fishing, in the manufacture of arms and boats, and in the transportation of the latter during long marches; the female, on the other hand, in the preparation of food, in the hewing of wood, the curing of skins, the sewing of clothes, in the building and preservation of the wig-wam, the care of children, and the carriage of baggage when on the march.[346] These occupations, at first entirely domestic, [pg 187] became, by degrees, separate industries, which are constantly subject to further subdivision.[347]